Clause 34 - Information to be included in the subsidy database

Part of Subsidy Control Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 2:00 pm on 2 November 2021.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Paul Scully Paul Scully Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy), Minister of State (London) 2:00, 2 November 2021

It is, as ever, a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Nokes. I thank hon. Members for their interest in clause 34 and the amendments to it. As we have heard, the clause concerns the technicalities of how we will require public authorities to upload details of subsidies to the database, and allows the Secretary of State to make regulations setting up the information requirements of the database. The regulations will be technical in nature, and Parliament will have the opportunity to review them through the negative procedure.

We have thought really carefully about this, and I would like briefly to take the Committee through our rationale for taking the power. The definitions, rules and processes at the core of the proposed new regime are set out in the Bill. Further technical detail and specificity will be needed on the exact transparency requirements. Our new regime needs to be responsive to market and technological changes and to reflect future trade deals and international obligations. It is also important that it can respond to unforeseen events and developments. We need to be able to act quickly, when necessary, to events such as financial crises, covid-19, and changes in world markets and the global capacity for the production of particular materials.

The list of information that must be uploaded on the database relates to the technical, administrative reporting requirements placed on public authorities, rather than the substantive subsidy control requirements that determine which subsidies are given. For these reasons—the need to change at pace, and the fact that these are simply reporting requirements, not rules about when subsidies can be given—we have provided for the Secretary of State to have the power to make these requirements by regulation, rather than putting them in the Bill.

We share the desire to be as transparent as possible. This is a crucial part of the regime, not a tick-box exercise; I assure the hon. Member for Aberdeen North that we take it very seriously. In order to give Parliament further information about what kind of information may be provided, subsections (2) and (3) provide illustrative lists.

Amendments 19, 20, 41 and 42 concern similar matters, so I will address them together. As I have said, the Government’s intention in providing the list of requirements in subsections (2) and (3) is to illustrate the kind of information requirements that may be included in the regulations. Those regulations are not yet prepared. More work is required to gather evidence and scope out the most appropriate way of setting out the database upload requirements in legislation. These requirements need to be clear and operationally viable, and must ensure appropriate transparency and value for those interested in subsidy award data.

Our intention is to make the regulations as straightforward and concise as possible and to avoid duplication. The amendments would mean that the Secretary of State must include in the regulations all the fields listed in clause 34(2).

Amendment 41 also covers the list in subsection (3)—the lists would no longer be illustrative but would be a minimum that could be added to. The regulations would be required to include information that, on the basis of the information gathered before drafting the regulations, might be surplus to requirements. We want to ensure that the exhaustive work is done beforehand, because we have tried to avoid creating additional, unnecessary reporting requirements for public authorities in the UK’s new subsidy control regime while still being as transparent as possible. Before setting out the requirements, the Government will carry out full analysis to ensure that data fields are useful and appropriate.